In a rural Colombian town, where Margarita Angulo* enjoys meaningful relationships, lush landscapes and the contagious joy of children, she also is very troubled by the armed groups that recruit young people to join their life of violence. (*Margarita’s real name is not used for her security.)
Guerilla groups and paramilitaries, which live around and among them, need recruits to forcibly maintain control of the territory, mining and drug trafficking, and to battle each other and the national armed forces. They prey on young people who have few job prospects and who haven’t seen alternative ways of living or supporting a family.
The department (like a state or province) of Chocó has suffered for decades as the result of the violence of armed groups. Civilians are deeply affected by the control the groups exert through curfews, murders, displacement, confinement and extortion; however, armed groups are a familiar part of life.
So, Angulo, a social worker and a Mennonite Brethren church leader, set up a church initiative to teach children about peacebuilding and the possibility of living without violence. The initiative started with children and then progressed to adolescents and eventually youth and adults — 80 people currently.
The purpose of the church initiative, which is funded by MCC through the Mennonite Brethren Conference of Chocó, is to “awaken the desire to live differently, to be peacemakers, create ideas, to learn different ways of seeing, saying, doing and giving,” Angulo says.
Together with a team of women from her church and the community, the children spend two evenings a week learning about peace. They practice peaceful interaction as they play, make art, create dramas, dance and listen to various teachings.
“We try to support them from childhood, so that they grow up thinking that it is possible, perhaps later on, to form their own microenterprise, their own company and to have a plan for the future. This part, especially for the young people, is very motivating,” she says.
As they become aware of other opportunities, the young people are more likely to realize they don’t have to become part of an armed group, she says.
“I believe in education because it also helps a lot to look at life in a different way, to think differently,” Angulo says. “I have always thought that we are not tied down, nor are we condemned to live under the oppression of armed groups. When I think about the space where God wants me to be, I am sure that we are not condemned to be like that. We can make a difference.”
Angulo’s commitment to peace, not just through this initiative, but in the way peace infuses her daily life in an environment of constant danger, is the reason MCC has awarded her the 2024 Michael J. Sharp Global Peacemaker Award. Announced on Saturday, Sept. 21, the UN International Day of Peace, the award acknowledges courageous peacemakers across the world.
Angulo “radiates a sense of peace and simplicity,” says Lizette Miranda, a member of the award selection committee and an MCC area director for Central America and Haiti. “She is deeply committed to peacebuilding and ending violence through love and compassion to young people in her community.”
Miranda recalled a time when an armed group stopped a bus that Angulo was on, causing people to walk home or wait until the group released the bus. “Margarita joined a group of women who had small children and began to walk, passing through the armed group. Margarita kept encouraging the women. She was singing praise songs with her belongings on her head and carrying small children in her arms. Thankfully they were spared any violence against them.”
Angulo sets an example for other women, who live in a male-dominated culture, where women are expected to be subservient and stay at home. She says she teaches women about gender equality and about the prevention of mistreatment and abuse, which is common. She also solicited local government resources to start an income project for women to sell their crafts and sewing.
“We have worked toward holistic empowerment of what we are and what we are worth as women before God and society,” she says. It’s important to work with the mothers of the children in the local church initiative because “if there is no peace in the family world, it is much more difficult to work for peace in a broader space.”
Erin Daza Sigler, an MCC Colombia co-representative, says she is inspired by Angulo, a woman of African descent, who sets a powerful example for young women as a leader within a male-dominated culture. In addition, Margarita takes the risk of telling youth they don’t have to join armed forces.
Angulo says members of armed groups approached her at the beginning of the initiative to find out what it was about. When she explained the initiative, they encouraged her to continue the project because more people were needed to make society better.
“To have that type of respect and recognition in her community is pretty significant,” Daza Sigler says. “She represents members of the African diaspora throughout the world, who are quietly focusing on the needs of the most vulnerable and plugging along to help their communities despite systems that have been always stacked against them.”
In Angulo’s own home, she and her husband have raised four children who were not born to them. At church, she preaches periodically and teaches about the peace process to help change the mentality of people who believe people who are poor do not have a way to succeed.
“My faith influences (me) a lot,” she says. “It influences my commitment to peacebuilding significantly, precisely because I follow Jesus. So that motivates me every day to work, to help, to be there at the front, working for peace.”
Inspired by Jesus’ example of transforming lives, she too sees the potential of transforming her community by consistently encouraging peacebuilding and pacifism through the local church initiative. Sometimes that includes public events or marches with posters.
“By being pacifists, they are saying no to mistreatment. They say no to fights,” says Angulo. “They try to live by values such as respect, tolerance, and I think it has been very significant.”
Children’s behavior at school has been less aggressive than it used to be, parents say. They too have learned about pacifism from their children and the initiative. Some parents have come to understand that their own experience with violence has caused them to use violence with their own children.
“We have been able to see transformation in these children, adolescents, young people and the community in general,” Angulo says.
Because of her leadership in the community, she has had the unusual opportunity to participate in local governmental forums and carry out campaigns in the capital city of Bogotá for conscientious objection to military service. She has shared her experience with the local church initiative with leaders of other MCC projects.
Angulo says she will continue to work for peace in this difficult context, even if she doesn’t see the full results she hopes for. “I am convinced that a constant drop of water can fill the glass. Here we say, ‘A grain for the hen or the chickens because from grain to grain they fill up.’ I believe that consistency allows the results to be seen, and I am very tireless in that part of continuing to work for peace.”
The Michael J. Sharp Global Peacemaker Award was created in 2023 in honor of Sharp, who was committed to peacebuilding. Mentored by local leaders, he worked with MCC partners to encourage armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to disarm and helped members return to civilian life during his 2012–2015 term. While working for the United Nations in 2017 to verify human rights violations in Kasai Province, Sharp, 34, and his colleague Zaida Catalán were executed by unidentified assailants.
Sharp’s commitment to peacebuilding was inspired by many people dedicated to peace who came before him and is shared by many others who dedicate their lives to building peace today. This award recognizes peacebuilders who exemplify MCC’s commitment to peace and justice in more than 40 countries where the organization carries out its relief, development and peacebuilding work.
Linda Espenshade is MCC U.S. News Coordinator.
Mennonite Central Committee is a global, nonprofit organization that strives to share God’s love and compassion for all through relief, development and peace. MCC is committed to relationships with their local partners and churches. As an Anabaptist organization, they strive to make peace a part of everything they do.
